


City Lights

by whatevenisabrobeck



Series: City lights [2]
Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: AU, Dallon is a reporter, M/M, Ryan seems like a cult leader but he's not, There's lots of drama and it all happens on a commune
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:31:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10025708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatevenisabrobeck/pseuds/whatevenisabrobeck
Summary: It was out in the middle of nowhere, first of all, tucked away in the open space of an expansive stretch of desert. It was a large building, like an old Victorian house, with an ugly, unseemly greenhouse attached at the side. It was ten miles off the highway and at least a hundred from any substantial town, and, yet, the only car parked in the gravel driveway was Dallon’s. Actually, the only car parked in the driveway was the newspaper’s, and should anything happen to it, he would likely be required to pay for damages. Lovely.





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One  
It was half past noon when Dallon approached the door of the commune, the Nevada sun beating down on his back and digging in with rays of unwelcome heat. There was no doorbell. There was no knocker. There was barely a door; the sorry excuse for such hung lamely off its rusted hinges. It was not the type of place where one might usually go, in fact, even the health inspectors were weary of the building. Dallon couldn’t blame them.   
It was out in the middle of nowhere, first of all, tucked away in the open space of an expansive stretch of desert. It was a large building, like an old Victorian house, with an ugly, unseemly greenhouse attached at the side. It was ten miles off the highway and at least a hundred from any substantial town, and, yet, the only car parked in the gravel driveway was Dallon’s. Actually, the only car parked in the driveway was the newspaper’s, and should anything happen to it, he would likely be required to pay for damages. Lovely.   
Dallon decided, given the lack of a doorbell, that his best option was to knock on the barely functional screen door and hope that he could be heard inside. He had absolutely no idea what to expect of this place. Spencer had called it a commune, saying that it was home to several young people who chose to break away from society and live completely isolated in a recreation of an old house. The internet had called it a cult, claiming that the house’s residents made human sacrifices bimonthly and buried the corpses out back.   
The door was thrust open, and a young woman with blonde hair down to her waist stood behind it, beaming at Dallon. “Hi!” she cheered, pulling him into the house by the sleeve of his shirt, “You must be from the newspaper! We got the letter just yesterday; I’m sorry if your accommodations aren’t as great as they could be. Here, right this way, I’ll show you to your room.”  
“Hi,” Dallon breathed, cringing as his backpack banged against the wall of the house. He hoped his tape recorder was okay.   
“I’m Elizabeth, by the way, but everyone calls me Z,” the girl explained, still tugging Dallon down the hall. He was too focused on keeping up with her to pay much attention to his surroundings. “Why’re you wearing long sleeves when it’s so hot out?”  
“Um…” Dallon stammered. “This is what I wore to work.”  
“You could’ve changed,” Z pulled Dallon into a small, plain room, which contained nothing but a bed and a dresser; both of these were painted an almost blinding white. The walls were the same color. “You can now, if you want. Unless you’ve only got fancy clothes-- then, I’m sure I could find you something.”  
“I’m fine,” Dallon assured her, “Are you the one in charge here?”  
“Well, nobody’s really ‘in charge’ of anything around here,” Z spoke quickly, smiling at Dallon and making air quotes around “In charge”. Dallon was too busy fumbling for his tape recorder to notice this gesture. “I mean, like, we all help each other out, you know? We’ve got different jobs, but every job is just as important.”  
“That’s an interesting philosophy,” Dallon clicked the button on the old eight track, turning it on inside his bag, “Are you familiar with the works of Karl Marx?”  
“Duh,” Z rolled her eyes, though she was still smiling, “Where do you think we got this idea from? Although, I shouldn’t say ‘we’-- that was all Ryan.”  
“Who’s Ryan? Is he your leader?”  
“I guess so,” she shrugged, “I mean, if somebody had to be, yeah, it would be him. But like I said, we all take care of each other around here. Nobody’s any higher in status than anybody else.”  
“What does he do?”  
“Hmm,” Z considered this, “He’s our only source of contact with the outside world. Like, every six months, he goes into town and talks to the people there, brings us back supplies. I’m not sure they know who he is, in town, but he says they’re nice enough people. He keeps the calendar, too, in his study-- makes sure we’re all on the right day, you know?”  
“That sounds like a leader to me,” Dallon noted, wishing he could describe Z’s facial expressions in the recording, “What do you do?”  
“Me? Oh, nothing much,” Z raised her eyebrows in a joking manor, “Odd jobs, here and there; tending to the gardens and dusting around the house, that kind of thing.”  
“Mhmm,” Dallon’s mind was already onto his next question. “Are the rest of you allowed access to the calendar? Does Ryan have any special privileges that the rest of you don’t? Is there any form of government here?”  
“Wow, you sure ask a lot of questions,” Z giggled, “I guess that’s your job, though, right? Of course the rest of us can see the calendar, I mean, it’s not like the doors here lock or anything. But, like, why would we want to?”  
“Could you expand on that?”  
“Well, it’s just, people on the outside use their calendars to make sure they’re not late for anything, don’t they? But we don’t really have anything to be late for. Dinner is when Jon tells us we’re having dinner. Town Day is when Ryan decides it’s time to go into town. Cleaning day is whenever I think it’s too dusty, or if something gets spilled. We don’t really have, like, a schedule.”  
“Is Jon the cook?”  
“Yeah, he pretty much lives in the kitchen.”  
“If you don’t use the calendar, why do you have it?” Dallon should’ve been paying more attention than he was to the questions that Z was dodging.  
“Hmm,” Z thought about this for a moment, “I don’t know. I guess Ryan just likes knowing that it’s here, that the outside is there, that we’re making a conscious choice to be here, you know? Like, if this was all we had, it wouldn’t be such a big deal being here, but it is, because, like, we don’t have to be. Does that make sense?”  
“Yeah,” Dallon assured her, “How long have you been here?”  
“Well, Personally, I’ve been here for…” Z counted on her finger, “It’s 2017 now, right?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Well, I’ve been here for eight years, but Ryan set the house up, like, ten-ish years ago? I dunno, you have to ask him. He’s the only one that really cares about time.”  
“And you’re not worried?”  
“What would I be worried about?”  
“If something were to happen, wouldn’t it be a bit… problematic, having one member of the society know acres more than everyone else?”  
“I guess, if you wanna think of it that way,” Z shrugged, “I just think of it as, that knowledge is open to all of us. If I wanted to look at the calendar, I could, just like, if I wanted to, I could go into the kitchen and start cooking. It’s just, what’s the point? Like, if I ever wanted to know the day I could just ask Ryan.”  
“But doesn’t that give him an advantage above the rest of you?”  
“No, because he’s not cruel about it. If I asked him the day, he would tell me.”  
“How do you know? What if it’s 2018, or 2019, or 2035 out there, and Ryan is just giving you all the wrong year? How do you--”  
“Why would he lie to us? You’re thinking like an outsider,” Z laughed a little in an attempt to lighten the mood, “You have to understand, we’re not like you. We don’t have any reason not to trust each other, because we have no reason to lie to each other. There’s maybe twenty of us here, and we’re more like a family than a society.”  
“Why did you come here?” Dallon blurted. He was, admittedly, confused as to why someone would want to live in the middle of nowhere with no connection to the outside world. He imagined that this kind of life would drive him to boredom worse than any that he had ever experienced.   
“Why did I come here?” Z echoed, “It’s a long story.”  
“I have time.”  
“No, you don’t,” her smile returned to her face. It was a nice smile; her lips were nicely shaped and her teeth were clearly products of extensive orthodonture, “You’ve got people to meet! You might wanna change first, though, here, I’ll leave.”  
“All I have to change into is more button downs,” Dallon pointed out, “I’m sure I said that already.”  
“All you said was you didn’t want to change,” Z winked at him, “I’ll go find you a T-shirt or something. You look like you could fit into Dan’s clothes.”  
“No, really, I’m fine,” Dallon assured her, “I have to maintain my professional aesthetic.”  
“I’ve never heard that word used that way.”  
“Things have changed since 2009.”  
“Touche,” Z giggled, “Whatever, then, let’s go find Ryan.”  
Dallon didn’t even have time to turn off the recording device in his bag before Z was pulling him out of the room and down yet another hallway.

 

“You’re the reporter.” It wasn’t a question. The man sitting across from Dallon regarded him with a seemingly unwarranted coldness, “Did you drive here?”  
“Yeah.”  
“The sand isn’t good for cars,” Ryan stated, “Ruins the paint. I’ll take you out to the garage first thing tomorrow.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Z showed you your room?”  
“She did,” Dallon wasn’t sure when an appropriate time to ask questions would be, “I heard you don’t have locks on the doors here.”  
“How about you turn the tape recorder off,” Ryan nudged his bangs out of his eyes. He was attractive, in his late twenties or early thirties, with curly dark hair and amber eyes, “I can hear it buzzing in your bag.”  
Dallon stared, awestruck. “I don’t want my voice on the radio,” he clarified, “I don’t want you twisting my words against me. I don’t care if you record the others, with their consent, but I’m telling you right now-- keep that thing away from me.”  
“I don’t treat my sources like that.”  
“It’s a precaution. You don’t know how many times in the past ten years I’ve been made out to be a cult leader,” he spoke slowly and smoothly, “I’m not going to tell you anything until you turn it off.”  
Dallon reached into his bag, not breaking eye contact with Ryan. He pressed the switch on his eight-track and waited until the buzz stopped. “It’s off.”  
“Thank you,” Ryan smiled slightly, if only for a split second, “Now, to answer your oh-so-subtle question, none of the doors have locks because none of the doors need locks.”  
“Can you expand on that?”  
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Who or what, exactly, would we be locking out in a place like this? Anyone that’s in here is in here because they have chosen to reject the outside world, and anyone who isn’t interested in our way of life wouldn’t come within a mile of this place.”  
“I’m here, though, aren’t I?”  
“The exception doesn’t make the rule.”  
“You’re better at answering questions than she is.”  
“That’s because Z hasn’t left this house in eight years, and I, unfortunately, have.”  
“She could leave, though? If she wanted to?”  
“If she did, she could,” Ryan glared at Dallon, “If she did, she would’ve. Obviously, she doesn’t.”  
“You’re not holding anyone here?”  
“The front door doesn’t have a lock,” Ryan replied simply.  
“The only car in the driveway is mine,” Dallon reasoned, “We’re ten miles from the highway. How might someone leave here, if they wanted to?”  
“If someone wanted to leave,” Ryan began, “I would walk them to the garage, and they’d take a car into town.”  
“What if they couldn’t drive?” Dallon prompted, “What if they had no skills whatsoever that would be helpful in the work force?”  
“Everyone here can drive,” Ryan assured him, “We’re all adults, and we’ve all been adults for the entirety of this home’s existence.”  
“It’s hypothetical.”  
“If we got to the point where that could happen, I’d make the decision then.”  
“Why are you here?”  
“I’m here because the outside society is falling apart,” Ryan said this as though he had rehearsed it many times, “I built this house, and I filled it with misfits, and I gave them a purpose. No one is here just because they have nowhere better to be. This society, this tiny, nuclear society, exists because ten years ago, it was a necessity.”  
“Who’s in charge?”  
“It doesn’t work like that.”  
“Z says you have the only calendar,” Dallon argued, “She says you’re the only one who goes into town. I’m assuming you’re the one who responded to Spencer’s letter last month.”  
“Someone has to do those things,” Ryan reminded him, “I built this house. I built this life for these people, and it’s up to me to maintain it. If I didn’t go into town, none of them would. If I didn’t keep track of the date, none of them would.”  
“So, would you say you’re the only societal presence here?”  
“I’d say I’m the only one here who cares that we are not the only thing in the world.”  
“And why would you say that?” Dallon pressed.  
“I’d say that because it’s true,” Ryan replied coldly, “They don’t care about the outside. I have to care about it, or we’ll end up exactly the way it is out there.”  
“Can I print that?”  
“Absolutely not.”  
“Can I print anything?”  
“You can print what I say you can print,” Ryan declared, “They’re my words, after all; I should decide what happens to them.”  
“Can you give me a quote?” Dallon asked, “It doesn’t have to be deep.”  
“I can’t think of anything you couldn’t twist.”  
“How about what you did before you came here?” Dallon suggested, “I won’t print your name or even who you are. I just want something about the kind of people who… who are here.”  
“I never had a real job,” Ryan explained, “I was in college when I got this idea-- I dropped out to come here. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Drama Scholarship. I was going to be an actor-- it’s a good thing I’m here, instead. You can put that in your paper, but I want you to know that I’m subscribing. I see my name in one publication, and you’re back in Salt Lake City first thing. Fair?”  
“Fair,” Dallon agreed, “Thanks for that, by the way-- I won’t ask you again.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

“Jon says to tell you that dinner’s ready,” Z rapped on the door separating Dallon’s room from the rest of the house. There was no lock; she could’ve barged in-- he was glad she didn’t. “It’s all vegan and gluten-free, except for the bread, because Linda won’t eat it if it’s not made with regular flour.”  
“Thanks,” Dallon scrambled out of the room and followed Z down the hallway, “I don’t think Ryan likes me.”  
“Oh, he’s like that with everyone,” Z assured him, “It takes him a while to warm up. Off the record-- I can trust you not to write this, right?”  
“Of course,” Dallon promised. If everyone kept making him go off the record, he was never going to get a decent story out of this place.  
“Off the record, he’s been hurt before. Like, don’t tell anyone on the outside, but… people have come here, and not because they wanted to live in a commune.”  
“Why, then?”  
They entered the dining room, and Z stepped away from Dallon, loudly announcing his presence. “Everyone, this is Dallon-- he’s a reporter from Salt Lake City! He’s doing a story on us, isn’t that exciting?”  
There was a murmur of agreement from the twenty or so people in the room, which, Dallon had to say, was classier than he expected. He felt like he was at a fancy dinner in Victorian England, except that he was the only one wearing dress pants. “Hi,” Dallon waved, taking note that Ryan sat at the head of the table. For someone who wasn’t in charge, he sure acted like a king.   
Z pulled out a chair and gestured to it. “You can sit here.”  
“Thanks,” Dallon spat out another one word answer. He really was better at asking than responding.   
He sat between two men, both of whom he assumed were about five years younger than him. Actually, everyone here looked like they were about five years younger than he was. “Hi,” the man on his right immediately extended a hand to Dallon, “I’m Jon, I made dinner.”  
“Hi.”  
“You’re going to love it here,” Jon assured him, “How long are you staying?”  
“I’m not sure.”  
“He’s staying until he finishes his story, and then he’s leaving,” Ryan put in coldly. There weren’t close enough to him for his eavesdropping to be anything but purposeful, “He doesn’t want to be here any more than we want him here-- right, Dallon?”  
“Um…” Dallon tried to find an answer that wouldn’t offend anyone at the table. He had a feeling that anything he could think of would make Ryan angier than he already was. “I…”  
“Don’t mind him,” the man to Dallon’s left whispered to him, “He’s just jealous because you’re better-looking than he is.”  
Dallon almost choked on his food, causing the man to laugh. “Jesus, Bren, what did you tell him?” Jon leaned across Dallon to talk to the mysterious man.  
“None of your business.”  
“Fair enough.”  
“He’s been here less than an hour and Brendon’s already hitting on him,” the woman on the other side of Brendon laughed. She was pretty, with her wavy brown hair pulled into a ponytail and her blue eyes rimmed with dark lashes.   
“What else would you expect?” Jon asked, “He flirts with everyone. Remember when he went into town with Ryan? I swear, he tried to bring back fifty people.”  
“There’s a big difference between five and fifty,” Brendon pouted, “You would know that if you’d finished college.”  
“You didn’t even start it.”  
“At least I didn’t--”  
“Gentlemen!” Ryan’s voice boomed through the room, making Dallon choke on his food. He’d never heard anyone bring order to a group of people faster, “Perhaps the two of you could spend less effort on impressing Dallon and more on being civil to each other.”  
The room fell silent. Dallon had a feeling that there was more to this conversation than he was picking up, although he wasn’t quite sure what it could be. It seemed, almost, like the residents of the house were afraid of Ryan-- Dallon wondered if this was part of some sort of cult brainwashing thing. He looked down at his water glass, suddenly realizing that he had virtually just drank the Kool Aid. If Ryan had planned some sort of group suicide in the name of some vengeful deity (himself?) for tonight, Dallon would be sacrificed along with the rest. Maybe he was only here to be a sacrifice, maybe only his drink was poisoned, maybe--  
“You don’t talk much, do you?” Brendon was prodding Dallon in the side with the handle of his fork.   
“Not off the record, no.”  
“What about on the record?”  
The side conversations between the residents had resumed, and only Ryan sat silent. He reminded Dallon of some medieval lord-- powerful and handsome, yes, but colder than the block of frozen land over which he presided. He stared out the window, maybe thinking about the outside world, or the tiny world inside his house, or, perhaps, the mysterious heartbreak that Z refused to tell Dallon about. “On the record I’m a lot friendlier.”  
“That’s no way to be,” Brendon smiled playfully, “How do you expect to make any friends if all you talk about is what we think of Ryan?”  
“Z told you?”  
“Oh yeah. She said you kept asking her if maybe Ryan was some sort of tyrant or something-- I promise, this isn’t a cult. It looks a lot like it might be, but isn’t.”  
“You dutifully follow the word of a man who is clearly more involved with the outside world than you are,” Dallon pointed out, “You live ten miles off the highway in the middle of the desert in a house built by someone who’s only post-secondary education was half a semester of a drama scholarship. No one will tell me anything about what’s going on here except for a couple clearly scripted assurances that you’re all here because you want to be-- and, yet, no one will tell me why they’re here, except for Ryan, who won’t let me publish anything he says! If this isn’t a cult, I have no idea what it is!”  
“It’s not a cult,” Brendon repeated, “It’s a commune. And Ryan once punched a guy in town because he made a joke about us being a coven-- you’re really lucky to be here at all. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken your tape recorder away and burned your notebook.”  
“Does he tend to destroy people’s personal articles?”  
Brendon laughed. “You’re unbelievable! Honestly, you read into everything!”  
“That’s not an answer.”  
“Okay, then,” Brendon was still smiling, “No, of course he doesn’t burn stuff, it was a joke. Ryan’s a nice dude, he’s just a little withdrawn. You would be too, if you lived like he does, and he’ll warm up to you eventually. It doesn’t help that all you do is ask him if he’s holding us here against our will.”  
“It seems like he’s isolating you.”  
“We’re isolating ourselves.”  
“He certainly doesn’t seem isolated,” Dallon pointed out, looking, again into his water glass. He didn’t feel like he’d just drank poison.  
“Somebody has to have a calendar,” Brendon argued, “Someone has to go into town to get us food and supplies. If it wasn’t Ryan, it could be any of us.”  
“That’s exactly what he said off the record.”  
“That’s because it’s true,” Brendon laughed again, “And you know you won’t get anything printable from Ryan.”  
“I know,” Dallon glanced again at his water. It didn’t look particularly drugged. “Will I get anything from you, or am I wasting my time?”  
“You tell me.”  
They were silent, with Brendon taking large gulps out of the clear glass sitting in front of him. If it truly was poisoned, he either didn’t know or didn’t care. “Tell you what,” he smiled in a way that could’ve been described as malicious, “I’ll give you one useable quote a day. A real one, something you could print on it’s own and it would tell you everything.”  
“You will?”  
“Yeah,” Brendon was still smiling. He had a nice smile. “But you have to talk to me. Every day that you spend time with me, I’ll give you a line to publish.”  
“That seems fair,” Dallon agreed, “Does tonight count?”  
“Hell no,” Brendon snorted, and Ryan glanced over at the pair of them, “It starts tomorrow. You got today’s quotes from Ryan and Z.”  
“Then why am I still talking to you?”  
“Because you’ve got nothing better to do,” Brendon smirked, “We’ll be up partying all night.”  
“Will we?”  
“Yeah, totally. It’s a tradition-- the night someone new moves in, we party.”  
“I’m not someone new,” Dallon replied, “I’m a journalist. Besides, I don’t party-- it seems like a messy thing to do, not to mention how utterly unprofessional it is.”  
“Whatever, but it’s in your honor. You kinda have to show up-- or doesn’t it work like that anymore?”   
“How long have you been here?”  
“I don’t remember.”  
“Yes, you do,” Dallon huffed, leaning back in his chair. They’d caught Ryan’s interest by now, and he was slowly standing and walking over to them, “You just don’t want to tell me.”  
“Gentleman,” Ryan appeared behind them, with one hand on Brendon’s shoulder and the other on Dallon’s, pushing him forward in his chair, “What, may I ask, has the pair of you so engaged?”  
“I was just telling Dallon about the party tonight,” Brendon beamed at Ryan with a certain adoration that made Dallon’s heart sink. Oh.  
“I’m sure he doesn’t want us holding a party for him,” Ryan returned the smile for a split second before replacing his scowl, “He probably has writing to do.”  
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him!” Dallon exclaimed. “He says it’s a tradition of some kind. Would either of you like to expand on that?”  
Brendon laughed some more, and Ryan continued to scowl. “You do that every time I try to talk,” said Brendon, “Not every conversation is an interview.”  
Ryan rubbed Brendon’s forearm gently. “Everything’s an inquisition on the outside.”  
“Oh, wow, did you get that from your secret livejournal?” Brendon was still beaming at Ryan, and, again, Ryan beamed back.  
“I told you, Bren, I don’t--” he must’ve realized that Dallon was still with them, because he cleared his throat and tried to straighten a tie that didn’t exist. “You know no one has the internet here-- don’t say that kind of thing.”  
“It was a joke, Ry,” Brendon pouted, “You could tell it was a joke, right, Dallon?”  
Dallon looked again into his water glass, wondering what Ryan might’ve poisoned it with. Cyanide? Arsenic? Bleach? No, it didn’t smell like bleach. “I’m not going to take sides. I’m merely an observer… carry on as if I’m not here.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Dallon awoke to a continuous pounding on the door of his room. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”   
Brendon must’ve remembered that the doors didn’t lock, because when Dallon opened his eyes, he was face-to-face with someone he’d known for less than twelve hours. The party the night before had been uneventful, and Dallon had snuck off early with hopes of getting some sleep. Apparently, he was out of luck. “I’m awake.”  
“I know, your eyes are open,” Brendon observed, “Unless you have nocturnal lagophthalmos…”  
“Nocturnal what?”  
“Lagophthalmos. It’s where you can’t close your eyes all the way and you have to sleep with them open.”  
“Where’d you hear about that?” Dallon asked. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge.  
“I read about it,” Brendon informed him, “I’ve read every book in our library-- plus all the classic shit, you know, from when I was in school.”  
“You’ve read everything?” Dallon sat up, pushing Brendon back slightly.  
“Every last book,” Brendon smiled, “Cover to cover. Some of ‘em twice-- I’m on my second runthrough.”  
“What kind of books do you guys have?”  
“Oh, you know, the basic stuff,” Brendon shrugged and stood up, “The Bible, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, that kind of thing. Most of us… most of us brought our favorite books from the outside when we came here. When Ryan goes into town, he usually picks out something new for us to read… bestsellers and shit.”  
He strode over to the dresser, on which Dallon’s suitcase perched. He began pawing through it, slowly handling each garment with patient coincidence. “Hey, what are you doi--”   
“Wow, Z was right,” Brendon held up a pinstriped button down, “You didn’t bring anything to wear.”  
“I’m a professional.”  
“Do you at least have some short sleeves?” He tossed the shirt to the floor, and it fell in a heap. Dallon felt the overwhelming need to pick it up.  
“No.”  
“Fuck, man, you’re gonna overheat. Wait here.”

When Brendon returned, he was carrying a bundle of thin, wrinkled clothes, which he tossed vaguely in Dallon’s direction. There was a green T-shirt, which looked about three sizes too small, and a pair of cargo shorts. “Are these yours?”  
“Mine?” Brendon asked, “Have you seen me? No, of course they aren’t mine, they’re giant!”  
They were tiny. “Whose are they, then?”  
“They’re Ryan’s.”  
Dallon paled instantly. “They’re… what? He won’t mind? Where did you get them, anyway?”  
“Dude, chill,” Brendon instructed, “Me and Ryan are tight. I just popped into his room and asked him for something you could wear-- no biggie.”  
It was becoming more and more apparent to Dallon that his new friend talked like he was trapped in 2005 and perpetually seventeen years old. Then again, that wasn’t far from the truth. “They’re too small.”  
Not only this, but they didn’t exactly look-- or smell-- like Ryan had just pulled them out of his drawers to give to Dallon. The shirt looked especially rumpled, and Dallon wondered how he was going to look in it. Not good. “We can talk to Dan later,” Brendon mused, “He’s not usually up this early, though, and I don’t wanna wake him.”  
“Okay,” Dallon sighed.  
The two of them stared at each other almost expectantly for a few minutes, before Dallon spoke again. “Are you going to leave so I can change? At least turn around.”  
Brendon laughed. “Oh, come on, it’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before.”  
“I’m more worried about my privacy than I am about you being freaked out but my body.”  
“Dude, come on, it’s not like you’d act like this if I was gonna see your arm,” he laughed some more, “Or, maybe you would-- is that why you have so many long-sleeved shirts?”  
“Please just turn around.”  
“Okay, okay!” Brendon raised his hands in the hair and turned slowly, as if he were doing some strange dance or participating in a body cavity search.   
Dallon quickly changed into the tiny clothes with which he had been provided. He found himself unable to move his arms past a certain point, and he feared that if he walked to fast, the shorts would rip. There was an awkward gap between the hem of the shirt and the waistband of the shorts, and Dallon could feel Brendon’s eyes on this gap when he turned around.   
“You look ridiculous.”  
“Thanks.”  
“I totally get why you wear all long sleeves and slacks-- you honestly look like a pot of spaghetti wearing clothes.”  
Dallon rolled his eyes at this comment and reached into his bag for his tape recorder. “Wow, that was so profound, I think I’ll print it.”  
“You should,” Brendon laughed, “I bet it’s better than the quote Ryan gave you last night-- what did he tell you, again?”  
“He gave me his University of Nevada Las Vegas story,” Dallon explained, “And he told me that all the doors are unlocked all the time and that any of you can leave whenever you want, but that I can’t print that in case it makes him sound like a cult leader.”  
“That’s Ryan for you. You’re not going to get anything else from him-- you know that, right?”  
“Yeah, I know,” Dallon brushed his hair out of his face, “I’m just wondering when I’ll get something from you.”  
“Patience,” Brendon said simply, draping his arm around Dallon’s shoulder, “I’ll give you your line after dinner, don’t worry. In the meantime, we’ve got work to do.”  
No one had given Dallon a clear answer on what those residents who were not cooking or leading a cult did all day. He remembered Z making vague mentions about cleaning, but even a house that big didn’t need to be scrubbed down every day. “What’re we doing?”  
“What do you mean, what’re we doing?” Brendon asked, “Like, what stuff around the house?”  
“Obviously.”  
“Well,” he began, “First we’ve gotta make our breakfast; the only meal we all eat together is dinner.”  
“Then what?” Dallon pulled his notepad out and began making a numbered list.  
Breakfast

“Well, shit, I dunno, man. There’s a list in the dining room of chores that need to be done,” Brendon explained, “Most of us usually just do what we notice, but the list does come in handy for things like re-shingling the roof, or for more personal chores.”  
2\. Check list of chores

“Can you give me an example of a personal chore?”  
“Last month, Sarah’s turtle died,” said Brendon, “And we needed to bury it out back, of course, but… well, Sarah was busy mourning and building the coffin and shit, so somebody else had to dig the hole. She wrote it on the list, and Linda did it gladly.”  
“Do you bury a lot of things out back?”  
“Jesus, Dallon, we’re not a cult!”  
“Look, I’m just trying to find out where the rumor came from,” Dallon said calmly, “Obviously, as a reporter, I have to follow these kinds of leads.”  
“The rumor started because when someone attacks us, Ryan beats them up,” Brendon huffed, “Apparently, when people get beat up, they’re a lot more likely to make shit up about us.”  
He turned toward the door, gesturing for Dallon to follow him. “Now, come on. Breakfast first, then work.”

 

“Gentlemen,” Dallon hadn’t heard Ryan come in, but when he spoke, the feeling of being watched was rather eerie, “I’ve been looking for you.”  
Brendon looked up from the shower pipe that he was trying to fix, “Yeah, sorry-- I was just showing Dal what kinds of things we do around here. You know, fixing pipes, burying bodies, that sort of shit.”  
“We haven’t buried anything since Sarah’s turtle.”  
“I know, he told me,” Dallon spoke up, not wanting Brendon to get in trouble, “Apparently that’s the only thing you guys have ever buried out there.”  
“Not the only thing,” Ryan mused, glancing at Brendon, “But certainly the only dead thing,” there was a pause, and Dallon considered asking about living things, “Now, Dallon, I’ve been looking all over the house for you-- did you forget the plans that we made yesterday?”  
“Ooh, you guys have plans?”  
“Indeed we do,” Ryan spoke like the king he swore he wasn’t, “I’m bringing Dallon to the garage-- we’re going to put his car away.”  
“That’s good; keep it out of the sand,” Brendon smiled broadly, “Want me to come with you guys?”  
“You have other work.”  
That seemed an awful lot like an order to Dallon, but Brendon took it with a grin. “Alright,” he pushed his bangs out of his eyes, “You guys have fun, then.”  
“Where is this garage?” Dallon asked as they left the bathroom, “I didn’t see it when I came in.”  
“The desert hides more than you’d know,” Ryan may have smiled a bit after this utterance, but Dallon was distracted with attempts to understand what he’d said.  
“I think I’d notice a parking garage,” Dallon argued, “Your plot is, what, an acre? Whatever it is has to be pretty close to the house.”  
“It is.”  
“Then why didn’t I see it? You aren’t honestly trying to tell me that I missed an entire building in the middle of the desert because of sand, are you?”  
“There’s a lot more sand covering our garage than you think there is,” Ryan said simply.  
“What the hell does that mean? Are you saying it’s underground?”  
Ryan shot Dallon a no shit, Sherlock look. “It took you long enough.”  
They had reached the door, which Ryan pushed open gently. Dallon wasn’t used to the brightness and blinked several times, trying to ignore the sunlight that bounced off of everything he saw. “Keys.”  
It took him a while to register what Ryan was saying. “What?”  
“Give me your keys.”  
“They’re not my keys,” Dallon stammered, “They’re the paper’s keys, really, I should be the one who--”  
“Give me the keys,” Ryan repeated, “I drive, or no one drives.”  
“Fine,” Dallon huffed, pulling his keys out of his backpack, “If you get a scratch on it, I’ll be screwed.”  
“I’ve done this several times; it’s unlikely I’ll damage your car in the process,” Ryan accepted the keys with a smirk and strode over to the car, “Oh, and Dallon? Leave the bag.”  
“What, why--”  
“I don’t trust you enough to know you’re not recording me. Leave the bag or we don’t go.”  
Dallon sighed loudly, taking off his backpack and setting it on the front step. He looked to Ryan for approval before jogging over to the car. “Don’t scratch it up.”  
“I’m not planning to,” Ryan started the car and began driving off road, randomly, it seemed, though Dallon couldn’t say what direction they were traveling in. Every direction looked exactly the same, with miles and miles of sandy desert as far as the eye could see.  
Eventually, they reached what looked like a ramp going underground. “Is this it?”  
Dallon’s question remained unanswered as Ryan drove the car into the earth. Dallon had to blink to adjust to the lack of light, but when he did, he was sufficiently amazed. They were in a hollowed out basement that looked like it could’ve been a parking garage in any major city. There were several cars corralled in the main room, and there were what looked like tunnels coming out the sides. This seemed like it had taken a lot more cement than a failed drama major could’ve mustered ten years ago.  
“Did you build this?”  
“Obviously, since it’s on my property and no one else has ever lived here,” said Ryan sharply.  
“How long did it take? How much did it cost? How did you possibly build this kind of thing on your own?”  
“A year,” Ryan breathed, “It took a year.”  
“A year,” Dallon parroted, “While you were already living out here?”  
“Yeah, the first of us built it-- Joe had a college friend who owned a cement company, and we… well, we hauled it out here in truckloads from Vegas for the entire year. Hollowed this place out, obviously, we dug into the clay. And, then, when we were done, the sand covered it up again.”  
“Wow.”  
“I know.”  
“I’m going to just assume that you had a permit to do this,” Dallon muttered.  
“That’d be the best way to approach this,” Ryan agreed, parking the car, “Now, come on, we’ll go back to the house, and you can help Brendon fix that pipe.”  
“I don’t think I was helping very much.”  
Ryan ignored this comment and took a good look at the clothes Dallon was wearing. “Is that my shirt?”  
“And your shorts. Brendon said you gave them to him to give to me?”  
Ryan stuck his finger in the air almost comically, as if he were a cartoon character getting an idea. “Oh, yes, of course! I remember now, yes, he came in and asked for them last night. I hope they’re fitting alright.”  
“They fit just fine,” Dallon lied. He was less concerned, though, with his own lie than he was with Ryan’s.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

“What’s going on with you and Ryan?” Dallon demanded as he approached Brendon, who was still fixing the pipe.  
“What?”  
“You told me you got these clothes from him this morning,” Dallon pointed out, gesturing at his outfit, “He said you went in and got them last night.”  
“One of us must’ve misspoken-- I, um, I misspoke,” Brendon gulped. He wasn’t as good of an actor as Ryan was, “I did go in last night.”  
“So, let me get this straight,” Dallon breathed, “You knew I didn’t have work clothes because Z told you, so you asked Ryan if I could borrow his clothes last night?”  
“Yes.”  
“After I went to bed?”  
“Yes.”  
“And then you came into my room to wake me up in the morning?”  
“Duh, you were there.”  
“Okay,” Dallon mused, closing the door behind him. Brendon would be easier to interrogate without Ryan helping him, “Okay, you woke me up. You came in and you started going through my things. That was when you supposedly realized that I didn’t have appropriate clothes. So you went back to your room, found the obviously dirty clothes that Ryan had already given you, and brought them to me?”  
“Yeah.”  
“What kind of host is Ryan if he’s giving his guest tiny, sweaty clothes that look like they’ve been crumpled up in a ball in his closet for the past month?”  
“You don’t know him like I do.”  
Brendon certainly was cool under pressure, but something still didn’t add up. “Okay, then, why didn’t he remember it? Does one often forget someone coming into their room and taking an outfit from them? Certainly Ryan, of all people, would be worried about getting his clothes back.”  
“He’s a busy guy. He obviously forgot-- he has a lot going on.”  
“You’re expecting me to believe that Ryan gave you wrinkled, worn clothes that haven’t been washed in a month, and then forgot about it less than a day later?”  
“Obviously.”  
“And that just slipped your mind when you actually brought me the clothes.”  
“Why do you care, anyway?” Brendon asked suddenly. There was a certain sharpness to his tone that Dallon had never heard there before.  
“Why are you lying?” Dallon demanded. He could match edge with edge.  
“Because it’s none of your business.”  
“So you are lying,” Dallon paced around the bathroom, “You just admitted it.”  
“What would I have to lie about? They’re clothes, Jesus, man, I took them from Ryan’s room this morning, are you happy?”  
“Why did he cover for you, then?” Dallon demanded. “Why does Ryan care if I know you took his things?”  
Brendon groaned loudly. “Okay, you want the truth, Mister Reporter? You wanna know what’s going on with me and Ryan?”  
“Yes, obviously, that’s what I’ve been getting at with this whole interrogation--”  
“Those clothes were already in my room!”  
“What?” Dallon didn’t understand exactly what Brendon was trying to communicate with this explanation.  
“I found those clothes crumpled up in my closet this morning, and I thought they’d fit you better than my stuff,” Brendon spoke slowly, as if he were explaining something to a child.  
“Why did you have his clothes in your closet?”  
“Because he and Z use my room to fuck, okay? Is that what you wanted?” Brendon set his tools down and stood up, looking Dallon in the eyes. “I caught them in there a couple nights ago and kicked them out.”  
“Why didn’t you just say that?”  
Brendon sighed and looked out the window. “Because it’s not mine to tell you about.”  
Satisfied, Dallon slid down onto the floor and motioned for Brendon to join him. “I’m sorry if I… accused you of anything. It was never my intention.”  
“You’re not very good at doing what you intend to, then,” Brendon sat down next to Dallon, leaning backwards against the wall.  
“Sorry.”  
“It’s fine, dude, just don’t tell Ryan I told you,” Brendon smiled again, and Dallon found it hard to concentrate on the instructions he was being given. “Or Z, for that matter. If they knew… shit, man, they’d put me out back with Sarah’s turtle.”  
“Well, I wouldn’t want you buried with the dead turtle and the vast network of secret tunnels running who-knows-where,” Dallon laughed, “And as interesting as Ryan’s sex life is, it simply does not make a story. There’s nothing printable about it. Imagine the headline-- Cult leader and cult member caught fucking in coven bedroom. It’d ruin my career-- I could no longer call myself a serious journalist having written it.”  
Brendon laughed, too, giving Dallon a somehow knowing look. “If you wrote something calling Ryan a cult anything, it’ll be you who gets buried out back.”  
“And then I’d be his very first cult sacrifice-- or, at least, I hope I’d be his first.”  
“Killing one troublesome reporter isn’t really a ‘cult sacrifice’,” Brendon made sloppy air-quotes around the phrase cult sacrifice, “More like just a plain murder, don’t you think?”  
“Kill one reporter and you bring in fifty more,” Dallon reasoned, “We’re like moths to the flame.”  
Brendon laughed again. “God, you’re such a distraction! I’m supposed to be in here fixing this pipe, and here I am-- talking to you!”  
“Oops.”  
The pair of them burst into a fit of giggles. There was something funny to them about the fact that Brendon was more interested in Dallon than he was in the plumbing. There was something hilarious to them about the fact that if Ryan could hear them, he’d probably stab them. 

At dinner, Dallon felt a lot less awkward than he had the previous night. He sat, again, between Brendon and Jon, and he spent more time talking and making merry than he did worrying about what may or may not have been in his water. “What’ve you been doing all day?” Jon asked cheerfully, “I haven’t seen you.”  
“He was with me,” Brendon answered before Dallon had a chance to, “You know that broken shower pipe on the second floor? Yeah, we were fixing it.”  
“Well, you were,” Dallon offered a shy smile, “I’m not sure I helped very much.”  
“That’s alright, it’s your first day,” Jon patted Dallon’s shoulder reassuringly, “You’re not trained for this kind of work at all. Let me tell you, when I got here, I was a lot worse.”  
“He hid in his room and didn’t talk to anyone for almost a month,” Brendon explained helpfully, “That was back when Ryan was cooking; he would bring up food twice a day and Jon would bring his empty dishes to the kitchen when we were all working. Turns out, he was reading cookbooks up there.”  
“I never cooked a single meal before I came here,” Jon grinned, “Thank God Ryan can read better than he can saute. He’s got all sorts of recipes, although I doubt he ever followed a single one of them.”  
“Ryan’s a creative guy; he doesn’t follow anything,” the dark haired woman who sat on the other side of Brendon leaned over, “I’m Sarah, by the way.”  
“Nice to meet you,” Dallon mumbled. He wanted to ask if he could print this story, but, then, he wasn’t sure that anyone would want to read it. Sure, it was interesting, but why would anyone in Salt Lake City care about what Jon had been reading ten years ago?  
“Has Ryan taken you out to the garage yet?” Sarah smiled kindly, leaning her elbow on the table in a very unladylike manner. She was so charming that Dallon hardly noticed her impolite posture.   
“Yeah.”  
“What’d you think?”  
“That’s an awful lot of cement.”  
“Dallon doesn’t talk much,” Brendon declared, “Not unless he’s accusing you of some sort of conspiracy. You should’ve heard him today, going off about what would happen if I murdered him.”  
Dallon was about to point out that he’d been discussing the logistics of Ryan murdering him, but thought better of it. Brendon had a reason for omitting what he did. “If you kill one reporter, more will come. It’s probably the worst way to get rid of the media.”  
“We don’t kill people here, don’t worry,” Sarah winked, “Well, Ryan did punch a guy once, but he lived. Didn’t he live?”  
“Of course,” Jon replied, “A black eye never killed anybody. Besides, that was awhile ago… how many years has it been?”  
“Four? Five?”  
“Brendon, how many years has it been?”  
Brendon seemed to consider this for a moment before responding, “Two, I’m sure of it. It was around the time of the marriage equality ruling, remember?”  
“The what?” Sarah asked.  
“Marriage equality ruling,” Brendon sounded bored, “Allowed people on the outside to marry whomever they want to regardless of gender. Ryan brought back a newspaper from town, remember? I’m sure I told you.”  
“Marriage is pointless here,” Sarah pointed out, “And we’ve always been allowed to have relationships with whoever we want.”  
“Yes, but it’s been different for people on the outside! They’ve been persecuted, harassed… for centuries! And, I mean, sure, it’s not perfect now, but it’s a step.”   
Brendon spoke as if he had personal experience, but Dallon wasn’t going to press. Sources were more reluctant to give up information if they were pressed for it unnecessarily. Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to put Brendon’s personal struggles in any article. “But, why did it take them so long?” Jon asked. He looked just as confused as Sarah did. “Why do they have a problem with it? I mean, we don’t.”  
“You don’t get it,” Brendon huffed, “Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, Ryan punched a guy two years ago for calling us a coven. That’s what you were getting at, right?”  
Jon and Sarah both nodded. Clearly, they were not used to Brendon having outbursts like this. “Well, Dallon’s already heard that story; I told him last night, and I’ve heard it just about twice a week since it happened. I wish something else would happen so you could talk about that.”  
“Okay,” Sarah bounced back cheerfully. Either she didn’t understand what Brendon was telling her, or she didn’t care. “Linda and I planted some new orchids today.”  
“Where did you get the seeds for those?” Dallon was glad that the conversation had shifted to something he was allowed to write about.   
“Last time Ryan went out, he got us some bulbs and seeds and things,” she explained, “Just to brighten things up in the greenhouse, I guess. To give us something to do. He’s always buying us flowers we don’t need.”  
“How does he buy anything, if you operate outside of society?”  
“Communal fund,” Jon smiled, “We put all of our money together; nobody is allowed to have anything outside of it. When Ryan goes into town, he brings somebody with him, and those two people are in charge of getting whatever we need for until they go back to town.”  
“Where do you… how do you earn money?” Dallon was intrigued. He subtly took out his pen and pad and began jotting down notes.  
“Well, we’ve got Joe’s family fortune,” Jon began counting out income sources on his fingers, “Although, that’s really not a lot of money, if you think about it. Linda’s got a guy on the outside; he sends her a check for a hundred dollars every few months. Dunno if he knows it goes to the communal fund though, I mean, would you tell him? And if you wouldn’t-- I wouldn’t-- would she?” He gestured to a pretty blonde woman who Dallon assumed was Linda,  
“Plus, we sell all sorts of stuff in town when we can. Brings in enough to pay taxes and such, although none of us are really employed, so we don’t have to pay for income.”  
“Hmm,” Dallon scribbled something about income tax in his notebook and turned to Brendon, “You know, for my token commune source, you sure aren’t giving me a lot of printable information.”  
“For my token outsider friend, you sure aren’t giving me much new material to talk about.”  
“Touche.”


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

After dinner, Brendon dragged Dallon up to the roof of the commune, making some half-hearted excuse that the bright lights inside the house were giving him a headache. Sure. They sat, legs dangling over the ledge, sharing the sunflower seeds that Brendon had brought in his bag. It was freeing, almost, feeling so close to death. It was just as freeing as it was terrifying.  
“I owe you a quote.”  
Dallon glanced at Brendon, who was looking off into the sunset. “Yeah.”  
“What do you want to know?” He still wasn’t looking at Dallon. It was almost like he was prepared to give his line to the sun as it faded in the west.  
Dallon considered this. What did he want to know? He had so many questions about this weird, mysterious place that he couldn’t articulate any of them. He decided to go for something simple. “Why are you here?”  
“Why am I here?” Brendon mused. “Hmm, well, do you want the real story, or the story I tell everyone?”  
“The real story, obviously.”  
Brendon blinked several times before saying, “Try again.”  
“Fine, then, the one you tell everyone,” Dallon resigned to this. He was happy just to get a quote, and he supposed Brendon would be happy just getting his name in the paper. The more he thought about it, the more Dallon realized that he could just type up some fake story and no one would no any better, aside from Ryan, who wouldn’t care as long as he was painted in a good light.  
“I’ve been here since the beginning,” this was just as rehearsed as Ryan’s description of his role in the commune. Dallon wondered how many times Brendon had practiced this, in front of a mirror, perhaps, making sure that it sounded realistic. Probably more than Ryan had. “I knew Ryan when he was in college. I worked at a smoothie shop. Chain restaurant in a small town outside of Vegas, you know.”  
It occurred to Dallon that he should turn his tape recorder on. “Mm-hmm.” He didn’t know.  
“Anyway, he and I had a mutual friend who introduced us, right? And Ryan told me about his idea, and I was… well, this was 2006, so I was nineteen years old. I thought, ‘Hey, yeah, society sucks! Why not run away with this random guy I just met to live in the middle of nowhere?’” Brendon laughed dryly, and Dallon thought it polite to laugh along with him. No part of the story was funny.  
“And, I mean, it wasn’t a bad thing. It was really cool, actually. I didn’t have any skills on the outside, and I still don’t-- if you put me back out there, I’d still be selling smoothies. I never went to college and I didn’t do well in high school, but… Ryan was nice to me. Everyone here is nice to me. I don’t need to go back.”  
“Wow,” Dallon sighed, “If that’s the watered-down version, I can’t imagine what really happened.”  
“That’s another story,” Brendon smiled, looking at Dallon directly for the first time since they’d climbed onto the roof. “For another day.”  
There was silence, and then Brendon spoke again. “What about you? Why are you here?”  
Dallon sighed. “I’m here because my editor sent me here.”  
“That’s it? You’ve come to live in a commune for a month, completely isolated from whatever life you have on the outside, and you expect me to believe you’re just here for work?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Okay, then, what’s it like on the outside? Do you have a girlfriend?”  
“That’s a complicated question.”  
Brendon made an annoyed-sounding noise. “Boyfriend?”  
“Equally complicated.” Dallon wasn’t going to answer these kinds of personal questions. He wasn’t here for that.  
“Do you have friends? Hobbies? Any pets?”  
“Yes, of course, and no.”  
“Why not?” Brendon demanded, “Why wouldn’t you have pets? I mean, like, you could, if you wanted to. You could get a dog, or a cat, or… you could get a parrot!”  
“So could you, and you don’t have one.”  
“Ryan has a cat,” said Brendon, “Well, she’s everyone’s cat, but she likes Ryan the best. Sarah had a turtle when she came here, but he died-- you know that. I’ve asked about getting a dog, but Ryan says it’s cruel.”  
“How so?”  
“Dogs like other dogs,” Brendon sighed, “Dogs like large, open spaces where they can play and grass they can frolic in an sidewalks they can walk down. Dogs like kids and old people, and catching rabbits, and sleeping under porches. I don’t think any dog would like to live in the desert completely isolated from the rest of canine kind.”  
“I guess he’s got a point.”  
“I don’t mind, though, I mean, really-- what did I expect? I live in the middle of nowhere with this generation’s Alexander Hamilton.”  
“So you think Ryan using Marxist theories on a tiny scale is the same thing as Hamilton inventing federalism?”   
“Hamilton didn’t invent federalism, he took his ideas from Locke and Montesquieu just as Ryan did from Marx,” Brendon explained, “And it was a joke. Chill out, man.”  
“It worries me that you look to Ryan as if he’s some sort of genius and anything other than a failed drama major,” Dallon gave Brendon a condescending look, “It’s almost as if you worship him.”  
“That’s ridiculous,” Brendon huffed, “Ryan isn’t a cult leader, you know that, right? This isn’t a cult. How many times do I have to tell you?”  
“Where did you possibly get the money to do this?”  
“I don’t know, ask Joe.”  
“If I asked Ryan, would he know?”  
“You just won’t let this go, will you?” Brendon sighed, “Ryan isn’t a cult leader, okay?”  
“None of you are really selling that,” Dallon argued, “He says he’s not in charge, but he sits at the head of the table and effectively shuts you up whenever you try to tell me anything he wants to keep under wraps. Any time I ask you anything about him, you give me a chorus of ‘he’s a great guy! Ryan would never try to control any of us!’ and expect me to believe it, despite the fact that you have no evidence!”  
“I’m not used to dealing with journalists,” Brendon admitted, “Unless you count… well, I don’t count him; he wasn’t a journalist when I knew him. That’s not the point.”  
Dallon wondered what Brendon was talking about, but nodded politely. It was best to humor him, given that he was already upset. “It appears the press is somewhat of an acquired taste. Actually, it’s a taste you can never quite seem to acquire, no matter how hard you try. We’re a fun bunch.”  
“Why do you always sound like you’re making an official statement or something?” Brendon asked. “You and Ryan both talk like everything you say is being recorded.”  
“Everything I say is being recorded,” Dallon displayed his tape recorder, which was still on. “And so, I suppose, is most of what Ryan says.”  
“Neither of you will let me make a fucking joke,” Brendon glanced at the tape recorder as if he wasn’t sure whether or not he should continue, but kept talking anyway, “It’s all, ‘Did you really mean that? Brendon, don’t talk like that, you know we don’t do that kind of thing here!’ It’s like you’re both paranoid that if someone says the wrong thing, everyone on the outside will think less of you! I guess you have an excuse, I mean, you’ve got a career out there, and bosses who’ve got opinions of you and stuff, but Ryan?  
“He cares way too much about what they think out there. It’s like he wants them to think he’s… I dunno. It’s like he wants to rope in every confused fucking nineteen-year-old smoothie shack worker and convert them to Marxism! I mean, I’m here because I want to be, and I know that. He knows that. We all know we’re here because we want to be, but… it’s like that isn’t enough for him.”  
“He wants it both ways,” Dallon breathed, looking at Brendon. He had just released a long breath, perhaps one he’d been holding through the whole rant. “He wants to be isolated, but he wants to be revered. Risky.”  
“Print any of this,” Brendon waved his arms around as if to encompass the entirety of whatever this was, “And I’ll track you down in Salt Lake fucking city and slit your fucking throat.”  
“You sure like that word,” Dallon commented, “Fucking. You say it all the time.”  
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Brendon leaned back so that he was lying on the roof with his legs dangling off the edge, “Not out here.”  
Brendon’s position seemed fairly risky, and Dallon decided not to copy him. “Means a lot in Salt Lake City.”  
“Don’t you ever wonder why?” The stars were beginning to take their places in the nighttime sky, and Brendon was staring up at them.   
“Wonder why what?”  
“Why does it mean so much? I mean, it’s just a word, isn’t it? Two syllables, really, that’s all it is. Fucking. Fucking, fucking, fucking,” Brendon enunciated the word almost excessively, like he was trying to figure it out by rolling it around his tongue, “It’s not like it’s a slur or a threat or anything.”  
“I’m not sure,” Dallon brought his eyes upward as well, “I suppose it’s just… vulgar. Impolite.”  
“But, like, why? It’s just a word-- shit, it’s not even an idea. It’s just a word we’ve given magnitude so we can use it, like, as punctuation or something.”  
“I suppose our forebears needed something to shout when they stubbed their toes,” Dallon rationalized, “It might also have a slut-shaming component, you know, what with the apparent correlation to sex.”  
“But, like, why? It’s just a bunch of letters. Fucking.”  
“So’s every other word.”  
“I know,” Brendon sighed loudly. “Words are a lot like people.”  
“How so?”  
“They’re so complex, every single one of them. There’s a reason for every word in the dictionary, a history behind it, and somebody who thought of it. But, then, we just take our whole language for granted. Nobody ever wonders where a word came from when they use it.”  
They sat in silence for a moment, just looking up at the stars. “You sure do think a lot,” Dallon observed, glancing to Brendon. He was still lying on his back.  
“It’s all any of us have to do out here,” Brendon mused, “That’s why Ryan sounds like he’s quoting Hemingway and I come up with a bunch of useless metaphors. It’s not like any of us have a schedule to follow or anything.”  
“Do you miss it?” Dallon asked realizing that the tape recorder was still on. “Do you miss living out there?”  
Brendon laughed, still looking up at the stars. “That’s complicated.”  
“Can you expand on that?” Dallon longed for his notebook, which he’d left in his room. He wanted to write down every one of Brendon’s words and keep them forever, even if he couldn’t put them in the paper.  
“For a moment there, I thought we were having an actual conversation.”  
“Reporters don’t tend to have many of those,” Dallon admitted, “Can you expand on what you said?”  
“Okay,” Brendon sighed, realizing that he was going to have to answer at some point. Dallon had a feeling, however, that he was just going to make up something that sounded believable or omit so much that his story was no longer true. “Of course I miss it. But don’t print anything about it, and don’t breathe a word to Ryan.”  
“There seem to be several things you’ve told me that I can’t bring up with him,” Dallon observed, “Why does he care if you miss the outside?”  
“Because…” Brendon trailed off. Obviously, he was searching for a line that Dallon would fall for. “He just wants us all to be happy here, you know? I don’t want him thinking that I’m not-- I am. But there are some things I miss.” Hook and sinker.  
“Like what? What do you miss?”  
“Let’s see,” Brendon looked to the sky for inspiration, “Well, my mom, for starters. She’s a lovely lady-- pretty sure she thinks I’m dead, though, which sucks if I ever try to come home. To be honest, I don’t even know where home is for her anymore. I mean, if your son went missing would you still want to live in the house filled with pictures and memories of him?” He let this question hang for a while before continuing. “I miss walking, too.”  
“Walking?”  
“Well, yeah,” Brendon sighed, again looking up, as if he were watching a memory on the face of the moon, “There’s nowhere to walk around here. I mean, there’s so much space, but… there’s no sidewalk, and no little shops to peek into, no cafes to stop at for lunch.  
“I miss meat, too-- like, I get it, Jon’s a health nerd, and he wants all of us to feel comfortable, and we don’t need it to survive, but I miss it. When Ryan and I go into town, we always go out for a burger, you know? At the same place we used to go ten years ago. We eat greasy fried shit, and we talk, and I feel like I’m a teenager again.”  
Dallon was going to ask if Ryan often took Brendon into town to indulge in things unavailable to the other residents of the commune, but Brendon was still talking. “And then we get back here, and we bring Jon his vegan ingredients, and we have a nice healthy dinner that tastes good and doesn’t make us guilty, and I realize that I’m twenty-nine, and the man I-- well, Ryan, he’s thirty. We don’t take risks anymore.   
“I guess that’s what I really miss-- the risks. I miss going skating, and getting wasted, sneaking into bedroom windows in the middle of the night. You know-- teenager stuff.”  
“You could still do all that now.”  
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t get in trouble for it,” Brendon sighed, “You don’t get it-- there aren’t any rules here to follow, but that means there also aren’t any to break. Maybe too much freedom isn’t the best for one’s quality of life.”


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

“Shit, dude, wake up,” Brendon was poking Dallon in the side repeatedly, and not very gently, “Damn it, Ryan’s gonna have a heart attack if he sees us!”  
“What?” Dallon started to stand up and nearly fell off the roof. Oh.  
Brendon muttered something about his room, but Dallon was too tired and too focused on not falling to his death to notice. “Guess we fell asleep up here,” Dallon yawned. He didn’t really understand why Ryan might have a problem with them being on the roof, but he was too out of it to really register that fact.   
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” Brendon was buzzing around like a bee, gathering up his sunflower seed bag and Dallon’s tape recorder. “Here, take this, go back to your room-- pretend you were in there all night. If Ryan says he checked and you weren’t, tell him you got up to use the bathroom, okay?”  
“Yeah, okay, but--”  
“Oh, fuck, he’s probably looking for us right now!”  
“Brendon, what’s--” Dallon couldn’t even finish his sentence before Brendon darted down the stairs. Okay, then.  
Slowly, carefully, making sure he didn’t fall, Dallon followed Brendon down the stairs and into the hallway. He was still a bit too tired to be able to tell what was going on, but he was awake enough now to tell that there was definitely something. He wondered, as he climbed down to the hallway, if Brendon was acting so weird because Ryan had poisoned him.   
No, Ryan would probably poison Dallon before one of his own… right? Or, maybe he had poisoned Dallon. Maybe that was why he was so groggy. He began to quicken his pace, jogging down the hall at a speed that probably wasn’t acceptable for whatever time it was. What time was it, anyway? 5 am? 6 am?  
“Jeez, Dallon,” Sarah’s hand was on his shoulder as she leaned from one of the many doorways lining the narrow hallway, “Why are you running? I thought you were a herd of elephants going by.”  
“Sorry,” he mumbled weakly. Now was not the time.  
“You’re covered in sand,” she observed, “Were you out on the roof?”  
Dallon considered what Brendon had told him about lying to Ryan. He figured that since Sarah had already figured it out, he might as well tell her. “Yeah, I went up last night and fell asleep up there.”  
Sarah laughed kindly. “It sure is a nice view, isn’t it? I used to go up there when I first came here-- kind of puts this whole thing into perspective, doesn’t it?”  
“I guess so.”  
“You hungry? I sure could use a smoothie; wanna join me?”  
“Okay,” Dallon shrugged. He had a feeling that Brendon didn’t want to be bothered right now, “Yeah, sure. I’d love that.”  
“Cool,” Sarah flashed an array of dazzling white teeth. She certainly was pretty.

After breakfast (which consisted of a very bitter tasting puree of various green vegetables and a couple strawberries), Sarah dragged Dallon out to the greenhouse to help plant bulbs. “I’ve never done this before,” Dallon admitted, “There’s no room for a garden in my apartment back home.”  
“That’s awful,” said Sarah as she handed Dallon a pair of yard gloves, “It’s really not that hard; all you do is bury the bulbs facing up and water them. These ones need lots of sun, so…” She scanned the greenhouse for an appropriate spot, “Over by the lavender.”  
“What are these going to be?”  
“Butterfly bush,” Sarah explained, “I’ve gotta talk to Ryan about getting us some monarchs or something in town. Do they sell live butterflies?”  
“In Vegas? Probably.”  
The door to the greenhouse opened, and they were joined by a blonde woman of about Sarah’s age. Dallon recognized her as Linda, but he’d never talked to her. “Hey, Sar,” Linda slipped on a pair of lime green gardening gloves and strode over, wiping the dirt from her hands on her overalls, “We doing the butterfly bush today?”  
“Yeah,” Sarah grinned, “Dallon’s helping, if that’s alright?”  
“Fine with me.”  
They gardened in silence for a while, before Sarah spoke again. “So, Dallon, what’s it like in Salt Lake City?”  
“I dunno,” he sighed, “Same as it is everywhere, I suppose.”  
“I bet you’ve got more friends than there are people in this commune,” Linda said in a dry tone, “I bet you make, what, sixty thousand a year? And you go to parties and meet people and haven’t written a letter since your fifth grade pen pal.”  
“That’s awful specific and not really true,” Dallon laughed in a feeble attempt to ease the tension. “Try two friends, thirty five thousand, I haven’t been to a party since college, and I work for a damn newspaper-- I write letters every day.”  
“Don’t mind her,” Sarah raised her eyebrows encouragingly at Dallon, “She’s got a guy in Salt Lake City, and they’re fighting right now. That’s why she’s so edgy.”  
“Sarah!”   
“It’s true!”  
“I don’t-- I don’t have a guy,” Linda stressed these words in an almost mocking way, “I have a friend who sends me money sometimes. And who said we were fighting? Did I say we were fighting?”  
“He hasn’t written in months,” said Sarah a bit below her normal speaking tone.  
“Maybe that’s because he’s got a girlfriend.”  
Dallon felt a bit like he shouldn’t be present for this discussion, but then again, he shouldn’t have been in the commune at all. “He wouldn’t do that to you,” Sarah breathed.  
“Wouldn’t he?” Linda sounded bitter. “Sarah, he left. He’s not here anymore. He doesn’t have any obligation to me, and I don’t really want him to. If he wants a girlfriend, he can have a girlfriend, and it’s my fault for trying to make him commit to something he obviously doesn’t want to handle.”  
“Someone left?” Dallon asked. “I thought… Ryan told me different.”  
“Sounds like Ryan,” Linda cracked a slight smile, “Besides, it’s barely a lie. One person has left in our entire ten years, and…”  
“Why would Ryan lie about how many people have left?”  
“He’s self conscious,” Sarah offered, “Doesn’t want you to think he’s some sort of cult leader, I dunno.”  
“He certainly does come off that way.”  
“You get used to it after a while,” Linda promised, “Or you don’t, and you rush off to Utah to join the media. Either one.”  
“How long ago was this?” Dallon asked. He wished for his tape recorder, but that was in his backpack in his room.   
Linda looked at Sarah. She didn’t know. Sarah shrugged and began digging in the dirt to place a new bulb. She didn’t know either. “Long time ago-- ask Brendon or Ryan. They’re the only ones who keep track of what year it is.”  
“But don’t you have some sort of records system? Doesn’t someone keep a diary? Couldn’t you check a letter for the date?”  
“We don’t save little stuff like that,” said Linda. “I recycle all of Spencer’s letters, or we compost them. Depends on what kind of stationary he uses.”  
“I know Ryan writes,” Sarah added, “Maybe he’s got a record of what’s happened.”  
“Do you not…” Dallon tried to comprehend this. “Do you know how long you’ve been here? Certainly you wouldn’t…”  
“Of course,” Sarah grinned, “I came here after I finished college, so that must’ve been… 2009. I’ve been here for five years.”  
“Eight,” Dallon corrected, “It’s 2017. You’ve been here for eight years.”  
“Ha, right,” Sarah continued beaming. She was perfectly happy not knowing what year it was. “I guess I have.”

Dallon sat, legs crossed, on his bed, reading over what he’d typed. The internet didn’t work; he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d get his article to Salt Lake City. Spencer was expecting something by the end of the week, most likely, because no one had really thought this plan through. He only hoped that Ryan had some sort of secret phone that no one else was aware of, although he doubted he’d be allowed to use such technology, even to call his editor.  
More than 100 miles outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, there is a house that looks like an old victorian with a greenhouse hanging off the side. This house is home to a group of twenty-somethings nearing thirty, all of whom have voluntarily severed their ties with society. The residents only interact with people outside their home a few times a year, when a pair of them ventures into town to buy supplies. I have been fortunate enough to gain access to this lovely little commune.   
What kind of people would move away from their friends and family to live with a bunch of other young people in the middle of the desert? “I was in college when I got this idea-- I dropped out to come here. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Drama Scholarship. I was going to be an actor-- it’s a good thing I’m here, instead,” says Ryan, the genius behind the commune. Ten years ago, he moved here to start what became a revolution.  
“I’ve been here since the beginning,” says Brendon, another resident, “It was really cool, actually. I didn’t have any skills on the outside, and I still don’t-- if you put me back out there, I’d still be selling smoothies. I never went to college and I didn’t do well in high school, but… Everyone here is nice to me. I don’t need to go back.”

Okay, so Dallon had spliced up Brendon’s quote a little. So what? Nobody in Salt Lake City would want to hear about how he met Ryan, how he ran away with him, how he put up with his fairly erratic behavior. Nobody wanted to hear about Brendon and Ryan at all, unless they were in love, which they couldn’t possibly be. Dallon knew love when he saw it, and he didn’t see any there.   
His article was garbage, and he knew that. This story was garbage, and he knew that. Why Spencer had picked this place, Dallon didn’t know, but he did know that he wasn’t going to get anything interesting out of it. Sure, the little personal stories of the people living in the commune were interesting, but they wouldn’t exactly join together to create a front-page article.   
How did Spencer even find out about this place? It wasn’t exactly well-known; Dallon had never heard of it before he came there. Then again, how did anyone who lived there here about it? That was a good question. He wrote it down on his pad and went back to pondering. Obviously, if he wanted answers from Spencer in exchange for his article, he’d need to go into town. In order to do that, he’d need to use the car. It occurred to him, then, that Ryan still had his keys.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

It took Dallon a while to find Ryan’s room; the hallways were too long and too narrow and too similar. None of the doors were marked, but he knew he’d found Ryan’s room because he could hear Ryan’s voice from inside. The door was shut, but Dallon pressed against it, holding his breath with hopes of hearing the conversation. He was nosy. “... have to stop telling him personal details!” Ryan was saying, “I don’t want him printing anything about… well, about…”  
“You don’t want him printing anything about you,” came Brendon’s voice, “You don’t want people on the outside finding out. Why is he even here, then, if you don’t want him to write anything?” They were definitely talking about Dallon.  
“He’s here because I owe Spencer a favor!” Ryan exclaimed. Dallon could hear him pacing around the room. “He’s here because--”  
“Because Spencer knows, too,” Brendon cut him off. “That’s it, isn’t it? You actually believe that Spencer Smith is going to blackmail you? Ryan, he loves you like a brother!”   
Dallon found it odd that neither Spencer nor Ryan had mentioned their apparent relationship to him. This was new. “And I love him just the same, but you can never be too careful.”  
“What do you think is going to happen?” Brendon demanded, “What do you think is going to come of this? Dallon’s smart, Ry, believe me, he’s going to figure it out. And when he does… when he does, he’s going to know you’ve been lying to him.”  
“So have you, dear.”  
“Yeah, but I’ve got half a mind to just tell him and get it over with.”  
“Why, so he can take you back outside with him?” Ryan’s voice was cold. “Do I not give you enough attention?”  
“Don’t start this with me, Ry. I don’t want to talk about--”  
“You went up on the roof with him last night,” Dallon heard Ryan step further away from the door, possibly closer to the window, “I’m sure you’ve dazzled him just like you do with every outsider you come across? I’m sure he’s infatuated with you now?”  
“Hardly,” said Brendon in a quiet tone. “And that’s not what this is about. You know that.”  
“What is it about, if not the fact that you’re trying to seduce your way out of here?”  
“Why do you care?” Brendon demanded. “Why do you suddenly care where I am? Am I only yours when you feel threatened? You know what I like about Dallon? He listens to me. He asks me questions. He hangs off my every word.”  
“It’s his job to do that, dear,” Ryan said in a gentle tone, “Just as it’s my job to care for this place.”  
“Not everything is about jobs! Not everything is about purpose! I thought we were coming here for us, so that we could be us without being judged! I thought you had me in mind when you built this place, at least a tiny bit!” Brendon was yelling now, and Dallon backed away from the door. He had a feeling that it would soon be slammed, and he didn’t want that to become a safety hazard.   
“Not this again,” Ryan deadpanned, “Brendon, I’ve told you, we can’t just abandon what we’ve created because it’s slightly safer for us on the outside. Other people… other people depend on us.”  
“Other people only seem to depend on you when I try to tell you what you mean to me,” this utterance sounded choked, as if Brendon were trying his best not to burst into tears. “I need space right now, okay?”  
“Fine.”  
“Just remember, if Dallon asks, you’re sleeping with Z.”  
There was stomping, and the door opened, and Dallon barely had time to hide himself from Ryan’s gaze before Brendon was dragging him down the hallway by the arm. “How much did you hear?”  
“A lot.”  
“Why were you listening? What were you even doing outside Ryan’s room?”  
“I was going to ask if I could have my keys back,” Dallon enunciated every word. None of this felt real anymore, “So I could drive into town and send my article to my editor.”  
“Go do that,” Brendon instructed, barely glancing at Dallon. His words were dripping with rage, “Say Spencer told you that you that if you don’t send him an article soon, he’ll assume it’s Ryan’s fault and there’ll be consequences,” Dallon didn’t ask how Brendon knew his editor, “And when you get the keys, I’ll be in your room. Come get me; we’re going out for dinner.”

The drive to Las Vegas was nearly silent, with Brendon fuming in the passenger seat and Dallon drumming his hands awkwardly on the wheel. He was trying to process exactly what he’d overheard, but every time he tried to think, he was interrupted by Brendon’s loud, quick, nasal breaths. “Stop here,” Brendon instructed, “I’m hungry.”  
“I think I deserve some answers,” Dallon scrambled out of the car after Brendon as the pair of them approached the Burger King.   
“You and me both,” Brendon huffed, “God, he’s so… I’m too angry to think of a word right now.”  
“What aren’t I supposed to know about?” They’d reached the counter.  
“Two burgers, two large fries, and two fountain drinks,” Brendon ordered for both of them and ignored Dallon’s question. “Wallet.”  
It took Dallon a moment to register this as a request, but as soon as he did, he was digging around in the pockets of the shorts he’d borrowed from Ryan. He managed to produce his wallet, which Brendon snatched in an almost annoyed fashion. This was something new. Brendon handed the cashier Dallon’s credit card and, taking their receipt, dragged him to a table. “You shouldn’t be snooping, you know.”  
“I’m paid to snoop.”  
“No, you aren’t,” Brendon ran a hand through his hair and avoided meeting Dallon’s eyes.  
“Excuse me?”  
“Spencer isn’t going to put your article in the paper,” he elaborated, “No one in Salt Lake fucking City wants to read about some random house in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. I’m surprised you didn’t think of that, honestly.”  
“Well, then, why am I here?” Dallon demanded. “How do you and Ryan even--”  
“It’s a long story.”  
“Obviously, I’d like to hear it.”  
Brendon took a breath before speaking. “I met Spencer when I was eighteen-- I don’t remember how, it’s been too long. He introduced me to his friend Ryan; they’d known each other since they were kids, and…” he paused, perhaps giving Dallon and opportunity to hang off of his words, before continuing. “Ryan and I… well, at first, we were friends. Just really close friends and nothing else.  
“But, then, stuff started… well, stuff escalated, okay? He kissed me one time, in Spencer’s basement, when the two of us were alone. He kissed me, and from that moment on, he fucking had me. Believe me, I would’ve… well, I would’ve followed Ryan anywhere, honest to God. If he’d wanted to tumble off a cliff with me, I would’ve told him okay, and jumped without making sure he was behind me. It was the kind of hopeless teenage infatuation that nobody ever believes is real until long after they’ve stopped feeling it.  
“When Ryan came up with his idea for the commune… well, shit, Dallon, I thought it was for us. I thought, in my dumb little nineteen-year-old brain, that he was making us some kind of… refuge, where we’d be free to love each other until it was okay for us to be happily, proudly in love in the outside world. I thought… I thought he had me in mind, or at least himself, but…. I didn’t know him yet. None of us did, really.  
“Spencer left after about a year in the commune. He told Ryan that he was being stupid, that he was trying to make our dream into some sort of anarchist revolution-- more than it was, I guess. Only, we all knew, it wasn’t our anything. The commune is all Ryan. Spencer asked me to leave with him, begged me to leave with him, said that to stay would be to throw away any hope of having a normal life. He told me that I was pledging myself to someone who…” Brendon breathed, seemingly for the first time since beginning his speech. “Ryan loves me. I want you to know that, Ryan loves me. He loves me, and he wouldn’t hurt me, or at least he hasn’t, in eleven years.  
“But Spencer was right, he loves the commune more than me. He loves the commune, the lifestyle, the isolation, more than he loves anything. But even more than that, he loves being someone. If we leave, he’s just a failed fucking actor without a job, but if we stay, he’s a leader. I don’t care if we don’t call him that, if he says he isn’t, he knows he fucking is. I know he fucking is.  
“When Spence left, he gave me twenty five cents. Said, find a pay phone, B, and call me when you need out.”  
“What does this have to do with me?” Dallon asked. This was an awful lot of information for him to process all at once.  
“I used that money last month, when Ryan and I were in town. Bought twenty minutes at a cheap internet cafe, looked him up online, and sent him an email,” Brendon explained, “Told him to send somebody to get me the fuck out.”  
“So that’s what I’m supposed to do,” Dallon breathed, “Bail you out. And here I thought I was a serious journalist.”  
There food had arrived, but neither seemed to have noticed. They just sat there, letting it cool in front of them. “I’ve got a plan,” Brendon promised, “We take my stuff from the commune tomorrow, and then… well, then you drive me to Utah. We get married, I join your life, and you help me rebuild mine.”  
“This is all rather sudden,” Dallon stammered, “I hardly know you.”  
“You can learn about me,” Brendon pleaded, “Please, Dallon, it’s the only way!”  
“You’re just using me,” Dallon huffed, “If Ryan cares as little for you as you say, he won’t look for you.”  
“I don’t have any friends outside of the fucking commune! I’ve got Spencer, and I’ve got you, and I’ve got a bunch of fucking shut-ins, one of whom cares more about Marxism than he does about me!”  
“I’m not going to marry you, Brendon.”  
“Then take me with you anyway,” Brendon pleaded, “I swear, I won’t get in the way or anything. I’ll get a job and pull my weight and pay rent, and when I’ve saved up enough, I’ll get my own place and you’ll never have to see me again.”  
“I’ll think about it,” Dallon bit into his hamburger, thus ending the conversation. He wasn’t going to think about it at all. He’d already made up his mind. 

“There you are, oh my God!” Z pulled Brendon and Dallon into a bear hug as soon as they were inside the door. “It’s past midnight! We thought you were dead in some alley somewhere, or rotting in jail, or, or-- it doesn’t matter. Ryan’s worried sick, though.”  
“I bet he is,” Brendon spat, “Worried some article about him being a cult leader is gonna get published in some second-tier journal.”  
“Second tier?” Dallon didn’t take well to criticism of the publication that employed him.   
“I’m sure Dallon won’t write anything like that,” Z smiled calmly, “And, Brendon, you should know better than that. He’s pacing around in his room right now; he asked us not to bother him.”  
“Then I won’t.”  
“Okay then,” Z didn’t seem too pleased with this, but she forced a smile. “I’ll at least tell him you’re back. Dallon, will you come with me?”  
“Sure,” Dallon just wanted to get away from Brendon. He should’ve had time to think things over on the car ride back, but, really, he didn’t need to. He knew he wasn’t going to take Brendon anywhere.  
“Great! He said he wanted to talk to you earlier, so this is kind of two birds with one stone!”


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

“So, Brendon told you,” Ryan shut the door before Z could even try to walk in. She must’ve been in on it, or at least not very interested in the conversation, because she didn’t try to enter. That, or she had her ear pressed to the door.   
“Yeah.”  
“He made me out to be a heartless monster, I suppose? Gave you the Ryan won’t let me leave spiel?”   
“So, he’s done this before, then,” Dallon sat down on the couch without being invited. He didn’t care if he offended anyone anymore.  
“Several times,” Ryan explained, “With anyone who’ll listen.”  
“And is any of it true?”  
“Some of it, I suppose,” Ryan sat down across from Dallon, “The part about how he fell in love with me, most certainly. We were young, we were stupid, we thought we owned the planet. I wrote him poetry, slipped it to him across the counter of the smoothie shop where he worked. He told me I was a great man, that I could change the world, and I told him that he was more important to me than any star in the sky. We meant it, too, or at least, I did.”  
“What happened?” Dallon asked, “You don’t seem at all like that now.” He decided that he’d be better able to get information out of Ryan if he didn’t bring up anything that Brendon had said.   
“I believed him,” Ryan spoke in a soft and almost vulnerable tone, something exactly the opposite of his usual cocky deadpan. “I believed every word he told me. I believed that he loved me because I was smart, because I was capable, because I was going to be the next Alexander Hamilton. I thought he wanted me to build a better world, not just for us, but for everyone who’d ever wanted to slink away from society and never be seen again.  
“As it turns out, Brendon just wanted a place to hide. He wanted to huddle up in a grand, luxurious bunker until it was safe to come out again. Spencer knew that. Spencer told me before he left, said he couldn’t do this and neither could Brendon. And just like he’s always been, Spencer was right.”  
“What about the clothes?” Dallon asked suddenly, “Why were your clothes in Brendon’s room? I take it you and Z aren’t really--”  
“God no!” Ryan exclaimed, “Excuse me. I didn’t mean it like that; I love Z like a sister, I really do. But… I love Brendon. I love him with all of my heart and all of my soul, I love him like he hung the sun and the moon and the stars and so much more. I love him, even though he uses me, manipulates me, tells me I don’t love him as much as I should. I’m just as infatuated with him now as he was with me when we were teenagers, it’s just that…..  
“I can’t leave. I can’t-- I can’t just go out there and do nothing while Z and Jon and Sarah and Linda all suffer the consequences of my wrongdoing! You understand, don’t you? If I leave, they have to deal with it. If I leave… there are certain things of which they’ll be made aware that, well, that I couldn’t live with myself if they got out.”  
“So you are hiding something from them!” Dallon exclaimed. “I knew it! I knew from the minute I stepped in here that you--”  
“Spencer warned me that you were too smart for your own good,” Ryan laughed dryly, “But, yes, I… we have a landline. Runs through underground wires, you know, just in case there’s an emergency.”  
“Does Brendon know?”  
“No.”  
“Does anyone know?”  
“I do, and the phone company does, and now you do.”  
“Who do you call, then?” Dallon asked. “Who do you call if no one knows?”  
“I call Brendon’s mother,” he explained, “I call her, and I tell her that he’s doing alright, that she shouldn’t worry, that he’d love to talk to her, but he’s too busy.”  
“Why? Why would you--”  
“Because I know him,” Ryan explained, “I know Brendon. I know he misses his family, I know he can’t stay here with me, don’t you see that? I know that as much as we love each other, we can’t be together! He’s going to leave, Dallon, and I want him to have a place to go when he does. I’ve taken so much from him, and I… I want him to have his family.”  
“Why doesn’t he leave, then? Why doesn’t he leave, if you’re perfectly fine with it?”  
“Because that’s not what he really wants. Brendon wants adventure, you know. He wants to be a swashbuckling warrior who hides in motels and escapes well-deserved charges of grand theft auto. He loves me, and he loves his family, but what he really wants is to live, live like the heros in the books he reads. If Ernest Hemingway were alive, maybe he’d write something about Brendon, and we’d all read it, because he’s the kind of messed-up hero we love to hate.”  
“He asked me to take him with me, you know. When I leave. He wants to go with me.”  
“I know.”  
“He tried to get me to marry him.”  
“I know.”  
“I told him no.”  
“I wouldn’t have,” Ryan said softly, “If I were you, and you were me, I’d take him away from you in a heartbeat. That’s why I can’t have him-- because I want him too badly. You understand.”  
“No, but I’ll pretend I do. For your sake.”

When Dallon opened the door to his room, he found himself staring into a pair of deep brown eyes. “Brendon.”  
“Hi,” Brendon smiled at him, maybe genuinely, maybe not. “How was talking to Ryan.”  
“Enlightening,” Dallon sat down on the bed, ignoring Brendon, who was seated atop the dresser, “I’m afraid I don’t know who to believe. I’m leaning towards him, though-- you do kinda seem like you’re lying.”  
“God, you’re smart,” Brendon dropped his smile and sighed, “Smart enough to know what the truth is. I should’ve known better than to try and use you like that.”  
He told me I was a great man, that I could change the world, and I told him that he was more important to me than any star in the sky, Ryan’s words rang through Dallon’s head. “You’re still trying to use me.”  
Brendon laughed and hopped down off the dresser, settling down too close to Dallon on the bed. “Maybe I am,” he leaned in close enough that Dallon could smell his breath. Peppermint; the kind that makes your eyes water, “But why do you care?”  
“Ryan loves you,” Dallon said, more for himself than for Brendon. “Ryan loves you, and I don’t.”  
“How long has it been since someone kissed you?”  
“That’s irrelevant.”  
“Why won’t you help me?” Brendon pouted. “You’re just like Ryan; you want me to be trapped here forever.”  
“Ryan doesn’t want that and neither do I,” Dallon argued. “If you really want to leave, I’m more than happy to take you, but-- not like this. You need to talk to Ryan about it, at least tell him you’re going, and then I’ll take you with me.”  
“Okay,” Brendon spoke softly, leaning in even closer. He was cute, sure, and he was definitely Dallon’s type. If he weren’t obviously trying to use kissing as a manipulation tactic, Dallon might’ve bridged the gap between their lips himself.  
He didn’t need to. In what might’ve been described as a wave of poor decisions, Brendon’s mouth was on Dallon’s, and they were necking. Right there, in the commune that Ryan had built, with Ryan down the hall. It was stupid, Dallon knew that. He shouldn’t be doing, he shouldn’t even want to do this, he knew exactly what Brendon wanted from him; he didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, either, but here they were.   
The door didn’t lock. Someone could walk in. Someone, Ryan, maybe, but anyone, really, could walk in and see what shouldn’t, couldn’t be seen. Though they were both fully aware of this fact, they didn’t stop. On the contrary, Dallon could feel Brendon’s hand snaking downward and reaching into his back pocket. Oh my God.  
Dallon was lost in the moment, too preoccupied by the physical situation to even consider the fact that this, what he was doing, was wrong. Oh my God. They pulled apart, eventually, after minutes or hours or maybe days; Dallon was too mixed up to tell. Brendon gave him a knowing smile and promptly stood up. “You should get some rest,” he suggested, “You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

Dallon awoke to find Ryan prodding him in the side rather roughly. “I’m awake, I’m awake, you can stop now!”  
“Is Brendon in here?” Ryan demanded without preamble. “Is he under the bed? Hiding somewhere else?”  
“No,” Dallon felt a pang of guilt, remembering what had happened the previous night. “Why do you ask?”  
“Because I’d rather he be cheating on me than on the Outside,” Ryan stood up, “Get dressed. We’re going to the garage.”  
He made no motion of leaving, so Dallon began changing into his dress pants and pressed shirt with Ryan still in the room. “Hurry up.”  
“What’s going on?” Dallon demanded.   
“Brendon’s missing, that’s what’s going on, now let’s go find him!”  
It all seemed rather dreamlike, this sequence of events. Dallon was in his room, and then he was running down the hall, and then he was following Ryan through the maze of tunnels, doing his best to keep up. When they reached the garage, Ryan took one look at the scene and pushed Dallon against the cement wall. “Did you give him your keys?”  
Dallon’s car, or, more accurately, the newspaper’s car, was not parked in its usual spot. Dallon’s car-- the newspaper’s car-- was not parked in the garage at all. “No, I--”  
“Obviously, you did,” Ryan growled, “Obviously, you let him manipulate you into giving him your fucking car keys! I assume that you’re aware of the fact that Brendon hasn’t operated a motor vehicle since he was nineteen years old? He’s going to get himself killed out there, and it’s not like he has any money! What about when the gas tank is empty, huh? Then what’s he going to do? Die alone in the desert, that’s what!”  
“I didn’t give him anything!” Dallon argued. “And it doesn’t matter now, anyway-- we have to find my car!”  
“Is that all you care about?”  
“Brendon is a grown man, and you’re acting awfully like you don’t want him escaping your cult. Does this have anything to do with--”  
Ryan was already half inside of a generic 90’s car that looked like it had seen better days. “Get in the car, we can about this later.”  
“Why are you bringing me with you?”  
“Because you know the outside, and I don’t,” Ryan huffed, “Plus you have a cell phone.”  
“Not on me!” Dallon blurted, “We need to stop by the house. My wallet’s there, too.”  
Ryan grumbled loudly but steered the car out of the garage and then floored the accelerator, sending them flying toward the house. “Run in, grab your shit, and let’s go. Every minute wasted is a minute that Brendon is in danger.”  
Dallon complied, running awkwardly into the house and not stopping until he reached his room. He rummaged around in his bag and found his phone, but not his wallet. In its place was a piece of notebook paper with a sloppy message scrawled on it.

Hi Dallon,  
I took your wallet and keys. Sorry. Love ya’. Tell Ryan to go fuck himself.  
\-- XOXO B

“Fuck,” Dallon mumbled under his breath. Ryan wasn’t going to like this one bit.

Ryan didn’t like this one bit. “How could you let him take your wallet? How could you let him take your fucking car? Jesus, Dallon, use your head!”  
“Maybe he got into my room because the door was unlocked,” Dallon huffed, “Maybe he got into my stuff because for the past ten years you’ve let him just… take whatever he wants, and now he thinks everyone’s stuff is his stuff!”  
“Don’t put this on me!” Ryan took a sharper-than-necessary turn out of the driveway. “Just because you live in a commune doesn’t mean you think it’s okay to take stuff!”  
“Why wouldn’t he? He’s been able to do it with no consequence for the past ten years! I’m going to get fired if anything happens to that car! My career won’t make it out of this alive, and you’re telling me that--”  
“Shut up!” Ryan was going above the speed limit. Nobody was there to stop him. “We’re never going to find Brendon if we keep doing this, and that means we won’t find your car, either! We can nip this in the bud if we just work together, track him down, and drop him off at his parents’ house, alright? Then we can argue about whose fucking fault it is.”  
“Fine,” Dallon sighed, “Now, where would Brendon go? He’s got my credit card, my car…”  
“Pay phone,” Ryan sounded proud of himself for the suggestion, “He’d call someone he could stay with.”  
“We don’t have payphones anymore,” Dallon informed him, “But you’re right-- he wouldn’t be travelling aimlessly. He probably bought some time at an internet cafe and emailed Spencer again.”  
“He told Spencer to send you, didn’t he?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Did you know?”  
“Not until Brendon told me.”  
Ryan let out a loud, frustrated wail. “Why is he even doing this?”  
Dallon shrugged. As guilty as it made him feel, he cared less about Brendon’s whereabouts than he did those of his car and wallet. “I dunno. I told him to talk to you before he left-- I gave him a little of what you told me last night. Obviously, it wasn’t enough for him.”  
“Fuck,” Ryan grumbled. These were his real thoughts, the things that came to his mind and from his lips naturally. None of this had been rehearsed, Dallon realized-- he finally had a chance to experience the real Ryan. This would make a good article, now that he thought about it. “When you have service, we’re calling Spencer, and he’s going to fucking explain to me what the fuck is going on.”


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

“Hi, you’ve reached--”  
“Hey, Spencer,” Dallon didn’t let his editor finish speaking. This was important. “Has Brendon contacted you?”  
“Brendon who?” Spencer was a terrible liar.  
Dallon put his hand over the phone and turned to Ryan. “He’s playing dumb.”  
Ryan mumbled some choice words under his breath, swerved into the left lane, and snatched Dallon’s phone out of his hands. They were going above the speed limit, and neither of Ryan’s hands were on the wheel as he yelled into the phone. “For fucks sake, Spencer, you know who he’s talking about! You’re the one who got us into this mess, and I swear to God, if you don’t tell us--”  
“Ryan?” Spencer’s voice came from the other end. “I can’t really hear you.”  
“Speakerphone,” Dallon mumbled, hitting the appropriate button on the phone as Ryan narrowly avoided crashing into a semi truck.   
“Are you guys on the highway?” Spencer asked good-naturedly. He was still pretending not to know what was going on.  
“Indeed we are,” Ryan spat. He’d handed the phone back to Dallon, and was using one hand to steer the car. “That’s one of the many things we have in common with Brendon right now. Unfortunately, he, unlike myself, hasn’t tried to drive since he was a teenager. You know, if you want to draw up a venn diagram.”  
“What do you mean Brendon’s on the highway? Brendon Urie?”  
“Obviously!”  
“How did he get a car? Don’t you have all the keys at the commune in your room?”  
“What?” Dallon demanded, “Why didn’t anyone--”  
“He took Dallon’s keys and wallet, and now he’s driving your car to who-knows-where. Unless, of course, you know where he’s going.”  
“Why would I?”  
“Because he’s emailed you before,” Dallon put in, “He told you to send me to get him out, but that didn’t work, and now he’s stolen the car.”  
“Unless that was your plan all along,” Ryan pressed down harder on the accelerator, and they flew past a new-looking yellow car. Dallon thought he might be sick if Ryan kept driving like this.  
“He hasn’t told me anything,” said Spencer. This sounded true enough. “He did call, yeah, last night, and he said--”  
“Last night?” Dallon’s eyes went wide. “Ryan, the--”  
“Shut up,” Ryan hissed, “What did he say?”  
“He thanked me for my help, then said I wouldn’t hear from him again. Said he was finally going to settle, shack up somewhere that feels like home.”  
“MOTHERFUCKER!” Ryan exclaimed, swerving through traffic, across the dividing line, and onto the other side of the highway. The car spun around, and then they were on their way again in the other direction. “We’ve been going the wrong way all day!”  
Dallon and Spencer greeted this sentiment with a series of exclamations along the lines of “What the fuck?”  
“Thanks, Spencer, we don’t need anything else. Bye,” Ryan snatched Dallon’s phone away for the second time and pressed the hang-up button. “That tricksy bastard.”  
“What?”  
“He’s not going South, he’s going North! I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming, oh my God!”  
“Where’s he going?” Dallon demanded.  
“Seattle.”  
“How do you know?”  
Ryan remained silent for a while, presumably to focus on his erratic driving. It amazed Dallon that they hadn’t yet been pulled over. “Brendon and I always had a plan B, you know. In case we couldn’t afford the commune, or nobody showed up, or too many people did. We wanted to be as far away from this desert as we possibly could, or at least, Brendon did. He didn’t just want rain, he wanted constant rain, and I wanted it, too, because I’m a sucker for the things he wants.   
“We never thought it would be real, any of it. I used to say, ‘Someday we’ll settle in Seattle,’ and Bren ate it up. I knew I was lying, and he knew I was lying, but the difference is, I thought he was, too.”  
“So he’s going to Seattle,” Dallon huffed, “Do you know where in Seattle?”  
“I don’t fucking know anything!” Ryan cried. Dallon had never seen this side of him before. There were many unseen sides of Ryan.  
“Do you have money back at the commune?”  
“Why--”  
“Do you?”  
“Yeah,” Ryan was still driving too fast.  
“Enough for a plane ticket?”  
“Probably. What are you--”  
“Beat him there,” Dallon instructed, “He’s not going to fly, not with a stolen credit card. You can bet he’ll be driving, and following every rule-- if he gets pulled over, he’s screwed, and he knows that. So, you fly to Seattle, you get there before he does, and then you wait for him. And once you find him, you tell him that you’re head over heels for him, you just want what’s best for him, and you ask him what he wants. Then, you just go from there.”  
“How will I find him? Seattle’s big.”  
“The car has a GPS tracking device in it. Spencer will be able to find it in less than a minute. You call him every day, and you ask him where Brendon is.”  
“What about you?”  
“This isn’t about me. This is about you and Brendon, and we all know it,” Dallon pointed out, “I’m going back to Salt Lake City; I’m going back to my job. Drop me off at the commune, I’ll take a car and go.”  
Ryan inhaled deeply and floored the accelerator. “Let’s get you back fast, then. If I’m going to beat Brendon to Seattle and you’re going to beat tomorrow’s traffic to Salt Lake City, we’d better hurry.”

 

It took Dallon a while to register the blinking lights behind them on the highway. It took Ryan even longer; he was probably too tired to be driving at all, let alone twenty miles above the speed limit. “Ryan, fuck, pull over!”  
“Fuck,” Ryan sighed, swerving to the side of the road. “Fuck.”  
He rolled down the window dutifully and pasted on a smile when the police officer approached the window. “You’re speeding.”  
“Sorry, Officer…” he squinted in an attempt to read the man’s name tag. It occurred to Dallon that Ryan probably didn’t have the best eyesight.  
“Wilson,” he whispered, hoping that the cop didn’t notice. He could read it from across the car.  
“Sorry, Officer Wilson,” Ryan beamed, “We… we need to be somewhere.”  
Officer Wilson smiled sympathetically. “I   
get it, but I still have to give you a ticket. Kinda how it works, you know?”  
“Of course!” Ryan sang. So there was surly Ryan, emotionally vulnerable Ryan, and this new, somehow worse, kiss-ass Ryan.  
“I’ll need your license.”  
Ryan reached into his pocket and pulled out a card that featured a picture of a teenage boy with a greasy mop of hair hanging in his face. “This is you?”  
“Yep.”  
It occurred to Dallon that Ryan probably hadn’t bothered to get his license renewed in the ten years he’d been away from society. “This expired several years ago.”  
“Did it?” Ryan made his grin a little more sheepish. He certainly was a talented actor. “How much will the fine be?”  
“I can’t let you drive this car, Mr…” Officer Wilson squinted at the tiny writing on Ryan’s ID. “... Mr. Ross. Is your friend--” he turned to Dallon, “Do you have a license?”  
Dallon realized, with a pang of nausea, that his driver’s license just happened to be in his wallet, which just happened to be on its way to Seattle in the pocket of a thief. “Not on me.”  
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me.”  
“Are we-- you’re not arresting us?” Ryan suddenly looked panicked. Yet another unseen side.   
“Neither of you have a valid driver’s license, and you’re speeding on the freeway. Yes, I’m arresting you.”  
“If you put us in your car, what will happen to mine?” Ryan’s eyes narrowed. He had either unparalleled acting skills or incredibly violent and incredibly constant mood swings.   
“It’ll be towed.”  
“Uh-huh,” Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I’m not into that.”  
He stepped down hard on the accelerator, not even bothering to close the window as he drove away. “Ryan!” Dallon yelped. “Shit, Ryan, what are you doing? You just-- we’re-- we’re speeding away from a cop right now. We’re going to get-- fuck, we’re--”  
“I know,” Ryan huffed, cranking the knob that rolled the window up. “We can’t go back to the commune. I don’t want to lead them there.”  
“We don’t have any money!” Dallon screeched. “It’s technically illegal for either of us to drive! Nobody’s going to sell a plane ticket to a couple of criminals!”  
“I know, I know, I just panicked, okay?” Ryan pressed down even harder on the gas. “If we stop, we’re fucked. If we keep going, we’re fucked.” There were now three police cars chasing them.  
“Pull over,” Dallon hissed, “Just pull over. We’re going to get arrested anyway.”  
“I am. You’re not,” Ryan breathed. He was slowing down. He had a plan. “Listen, Dallon, I’m going to get a month in jail for this, yeah? But you’re not breaking the law. We’ll call the commune, have Z come get you. Then you can call Spencer from there and have him pick you up.”  
“What about Brendon?”  
Dallon’s question remained unanswered as Officer Wilson approached their car yet again, this time with a different instruction. “Get out of your car and put your hands on your heads.”


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

“What the fuck, Ryan?” Dallon could hear Z yelling through the phone. “You’ve had a phone here this entire time? I thought we were isolated! I thought we all took a vow, or didn’t you fucking--”  
“Z,” Ryan spoke calmly. “Z, please, we really need your help right now.”  
“Oh, I’m sure you do!” She screamed. “Where are you, hm? And where’s Brendon?”  
“Brendon is in Seattle, on on his way there,” Ryan kept an even tone despite the fact that Z was yelling at him, “And Dallon and I have hit a small snag, seeing as we were driving on the highway without valid licenses. If you could just come and--”  
“Dallon’s with you? We thought he went with Brendon.”  
“No, Brendon stole his keys and his wallet and took off on his own. I brought Dallon with me to go find him, and--”  
“If your license isn’t valid, why should mine be?”  
“Z, please, just do this for us.”  
She said something in a quieter tone that was hard for Dallon to hear. Ryan took the phone away from his ear and turned to Dallon. “She wants to talk to you.”  
Dallon shakily accepted the phone. “Is Ryan lying?” Z demanded before Dallon could greet her.  
“No.”  
She laughed, though it was rather forced. “I’d hoped he was.”  
“Didn’t I warn you about him?” Dallon was laughing too. He didn’t know why. Ryan gave him a look that wasn’t exactly one of amusement.   
“You did. I’ve been stupid, haven’t I? Shit, we all have,” she mused, “I’ll come get you. We can work it out from there.”  
“Thanks, Z, it means a lot.”  
The line was already dead.

“You ass!” Z shouted as soon as they were back on the highway. “Care to tell me about the secret phone you’ve been keeping all these years?”  
“Z…” Ryan rubbed his temples. He was clearly tired.  
“You said we couldn’t call anyone on the outside! You said we didn’t have a way to call anyone on the outside! You said--”  
“Z, please,” Ryan huffed. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”  
“Yeah? Well, I do, and I’m the one who just bailed you out of jail.”  
“I only used it to talk to Grace.”  
“Who the hell is Grace?” Z was a better driver than Ryan, Dallon observed. He felt a lot safer than he had a few hours earlier.  
“Brendon’s mother.”  
“Why were you talking to Brendon’s mother?”  
“I wanted him to have a way out,” Ryan said quietly, “Just in case he ever needed it. It seems, however, that rather than talking to me, Brendon just stole a car and ran off, so all of this was for nothing.”  
“And did you call my mother?” Z’s tone was more bitter than it had already been. Dallon couldn’t recall ever seeing her this mad. “Did you call anyone else’s family at all, or is this just special treatment Brendon gets because he’s got you wrapped around his little finger?”  
Dallon would’ve liked to say something along the lines of, Brendon’s got everyone wrapped around his little finger, but Ryan was already talking. “He didn’t know about it.”  
“That’s not an answer.”  
“It should be,” Ryan might’ve looked into Z’s eyes, if she weren’t staring at the road with intense concentration.  
“You said we couldn’t call the outside world. You told Linda-- you told her she couldn’t talk to Spencer,” Z sounded more heartbroken than angry, “And when Jon hurt his leg, you said he didn’t need a doctor, he’d be absolutely fine, we couldn’t call an ambulance if we wanted to.”  
“He was fine,” Ryan argued, “He is fine.”  
“Yeah, barely,” Z snapped, “Yeah, he’s fine, because we spent the better part of a month taking turns pouring whiskey on the wound. Yeah, he’s fine, because he’s lucky, and he didn’t get infected. What if he had? Would you have called the doctor then, or let him die?”  
“This isn’t about what I would’ve done!”  
“Where were you even driving to, anyway? Why were you speeding? Why did you get taken to jail for speeding?”  
“We think Brendon’s in Seattle,” Dallon put in helpfully, “It wouldn’t be much of an issue except that he stole my car and my wallet.”  
“Don’t forget that Ryan wants to keep him penned up in the commune so that they can keep toying with each other’s emotions until everyone realizes that one of them is a lying tyrant who uses other people’s trauma to turn a profit.”  
“Hey!” Ryan scolded, “I’m not a tyrant! If anyone else had a phone--”  
“But no one else did have a phone! Literally no one aside from you broke the rules of the commune, and you wrote the rules of the commune,” Z was clearly trying very hard not to take out her frustration on the gas pedal. “Don’t try to tell me that Brendon and Spencer helped; we all know it was you. We always knew it was you, you know, we just never said anything. Thought you were a genius.”  
“This generation’s Hamilton,” Dallon put in helpfully. They both turned to stare at him, so he clarified, “Brendon said that.”  
“If he thought so highly of me, why did he leave?”  
“Probably for the same reason I’ll be going in the morning,” Z huffed, “You know, I thought you saved me. I thought I was finally going to be able to forget what happened to me, but… God, Ryan, you’re so selfish. You’re obsessed with yourself, and you’re obsessed with Brendon, and I don’t think you’ve ever really seen past the two of you. I’m sorry that you’re in love with someone who thinks loving you back means making your life Hell, but that doesn’t mean you can do things like this to the rest of us.”  
“Don’t leave,” said Dallon, “There’s no point. Does anyone else know about the phone?”  
“No,” Z huffed, “We were having dinner when it rang. I only heard it because I was going to your room to go get you. I told the others that you were probably in town and that I was going to go track you down and make sure you were okay. You’re welcome.”  
“Thank you,” Ryan breathed. He didn’t need to say how important to him his reputation was. Everyone around him already knew.   
“Good,” Dallon attempted a smile, but dropped it when it wasn’t returned. “So you can throw it out. Ryan’s leaving tomorrow, anyway-- he wants to go find Brendon in Seattle. Just give him a car and some money, send him on his way, and then throw away the phone. If the commune really is important to you, make it your dream, not his.”  
Z considered this for a moment, and then let out a soft laugh. “You’re such an outsider,” she giggled, “Planning everything to the letter. You’re right, of course, but damn, you’re such an outsider.”

 

The next morning was a bright one, with the sun bleeding into every window and casting pretty light across the white decor. Ryan was gone before Dallon woke up. Z had let him take pictures of the house with a small digital camera; she wasn’t as reputation-obsessed as Ryan was. Ryan’s bed was made neatly, and the room was cleared of his personal articles. Brendon’s room was a mess, with clothes scattered all over the floor and the paper peeling from the walls. Dallon could picture him, just before he left, gathering up important things and stuffing them into his bag. Was this before or after he went to Dallon’s room to collect his keys and wallet?  
He got a few good shots of the residents of the commune, making breakfast, working, reading. After that, he was packed up and on his way within an hour. There was no epic story, no romance, nothing of value, really, the more he thought about it. Brendon had gotten away with grand theft auto, Ryan had gotten away with lying, and now Dallon was getting away from the commune, bearing secrets that no one in Salt Lake City would ever want to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there will be a sequel.


End file.
